


Have You No Idea That You're in Deep?

by Kateinscarves



Category: The X-Files RPF
Genre: F/M, Gillovny, Song: Do I Wanna Know? (Dua Lipa)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26153011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kateinscarves/pseuds/Kateinscarves
Summary: *Completed 4 Feb 2021*Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by the heartbreaking and sexy "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx
Relationships: Gillian Anderson & David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson/David Duchovny
Comments: 14
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rated for language and chapters to come, pun intended.

_I’ve dreamt about you nearly every night this week_

_How many secrets can you keep?_

✕

**London, August 2003**

When she heard his voice she thought certainly she was still dreaming. That he was a manifestation of her subconscious (which happened far more often than she cared to admit, and wouldn’t to anyone, ever) seemed far more likely than him actually on the phone, _her_ phone, as she struggled to emerge from the glimmering, tangled blanket of deep sleep and fumbled with the mobile as Piper rolled over in the bed next to her.

She wasn’t sure if she even replied to his initial greeting-- _Hiya, blondie_ \--as her brain worked to fire neurons. The first words she heard herself say were,

“I’m so sorry, David.”

She heard the distinct sound of him swallowing and setting a glass down. She’d heard just the day, a tiny blurb on the news as she had been making lunch before heading to the theater, and had intended to call him. Or write maybe, a tasteful sympathy card and maybe even a spray of lilies. That was nice and detached.

But here he was, on the phone, on _her_ phone, and she gave up her opening line.

“I don’t know what to do with that yet--thanks, I guess,” he replied as if the words tasted bad.

Sliding out of bed as soundless as possible so as not to rouse Piper any further, she padded to the window and looked out at the hackneyed skyline of her London neighborhood.

“Are you ok?” she asked him, or herself, maybe.

“Yeah, I guess,” he replied, unhelpful as a cue for her next line. Their conversations since the end of the shows were rare, and she was out of practice. Wasn’t even sure of her role anymore.

“Is the--are you--," she took a breath. _Get your shit together._ "When will you be in Paris?”

“I’m halfway there now,” he said with a dry chuckle. “Well, maybe more than halfway.”

She frowned at his tone. “Where _are_ you?”

“Some shitty bar,” he replied casually, and the din beyond his voice suddenly made sense, but his next words didn’t.

“In London.”

Her stomach dropped to the soles of her feet.

“What--what are you doing _here_?” the last word took on a shrill, almost panicked sound.

A deep sigh from his end of the line before, “I don’t all together know.”

“Where’s--Tea? West? The baby?”

“New York.”

“Oh, David--,” she closed her eyes and leaned into the unforgiving glass of the window.

“--they didn’t even know the guy,” he snapped. “I didn’t know the guy. Not _really_.”

“Where?” she asked, pulling her head away from where the cool hand of the night had touched it.

“Where what?”

“What shitty bar, Duchovny?” she asked as she closed the bedroom door behind her and headed towards the other end of the flat where Piper’s nanny was sleeping.

“Oh, look, Gill, you don’t--,” he began, though without much heart behind the denial.

As she passed the coat rack she grabbed her jacket. 

“I’ve already got my mac on.”

✕

The Dolphin was a dive bar by any and all standards, with more than a few stabbings and brawls in its heyday, but since that was chic now, she paid the £15 cover out of the Burberry macintosh she’d thrown over her silk pajama top and balanced out with a pair of hastily buttoned jeans. God help her if there were pap anywhere in the vicinity, but when she walked through the door and was greeted by a Sex Pistols song at top volume and the smell of stale sex and cigarettes, she figured that possibility was nil.

He was at the bar hunched down in his seat with his overgrown hair obscuring his features, an overnight bag pathetically crumpled at his feet like a drunk friend.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he said to her reflection in the mirror behind the bar, meeting her eyes there first.

“My thoughts exactly,” she replied, stiffening involuntarily when he turned abruptly and wrapped her in a hug. Like their dialogue after the show, their movements were clumsy. At least, hers were--he seemed privy to a new script between them that she wasn’t, returning somehow to an intimacy that was brand new.

“You smell good,” he whispered to the skin behind her ear, letting his lips brush there.

Stepping back from all of it slightly, she regarded him with an arched eyebrow.

“You don’t.”

He smiled mischievously, but didn’t quite sell it.

“Sat next to a farter on the flight.”

“I’ll have what he’s having,” she told the bartender who was riddled with face tattoos where he wasn’t pierced, who regarded her attire with the same suspicion as the bouncer.

“How _is_ Tea, and the kids?” she asked because what the fuck else could she ask, while staring at him like he was an actual alien, trying to absorb the surreal fact of him being before her here, now.

“Good, too good for me,” he answered quickly, taking a deep pull from his glass before asking with a wink, “How is my favorite Anderson?”

“Piper is not an Anderson,” she smirked with an eyeroll.

“She’s my favorite _Klotz_ ,” he corrected her. “You’re my favorite _Anderson_.”

She held his eye contact now, narrowing her eyes.

“I must be the only one you know.”

That earned her an abrupt, deep chuff of laughter that he punctuated by downing the last finger of his scotch.

“I met Wes once at Chateau Marmont...annoying as hell, even before the blow.”

“No competition, then,” she said dryly as a scotch appeared on a napkin before her.

“No,” he shook his head, and gave her another level stare. “There never was.”

She broke contact first, making the excuse to close her eyes as the scotch burned a war path down her esophagus.

“How long until you go on to Paris?” she rasped as she licked the last sting of it from her lips.

He turned back to signal the bartender with his empty glass when he said, “I didn’t buy a ticket yet.”

“What do you mean?” She asked as the scotch pooled sourly in her stomach. She didn’t drink anymore and thought momentarily of the last meal she had hours ago being an insufficient accompaniment for the amount of alcohol hitting her bloodstream. 

How quickly she unraveled with him. _How fucking typical._

“What I mean is what I said,” he said blandly, oblivious to her inner struggle. “I walked into the terminal at JFK and when the girl asked where to, I said...here. Didn’t plan beyond that. Didn’t even tell Tea.” He added the last bit as he brought a new glass to his lips.

Ah. Another little secret. _Again_.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“But surely, they must be having a memorial,” she asked, taking another sip for something to do with her hands that wasn’t shaking him. 

“ _They_ are. Tomorrow afternoon. I just don’t know if _I_ am going.”

She set the now empty glass down on the bar with a clunk.

“Really, don’t be fucking stupid.”

His body tensed as he turned toward her combatively in response to her combative words.

Ah yes, back here indeed.

“Look, I didn’t think about it too much. I just--I just walked into the fucking airport and I was planning to go to Paris but then--,”

“--then _what_?”

“This is where I wanted to be,” he nearly shouted, to be heard over the music, which of course at that exact moment took a breath before the next song came on.

Her eyes widened and scanned the room quickly, as only a handful of heads turned toward them but then immediately back to their respective parties. She thanked her lucky stars once again it wasn’t a pap hang out. The idea of "Mulder" and "Scully" having a drunken spat in the middle of the night at a sleazy bar in a city only one of them had a reason to be in-- _delightful_.

When they both were sure attention was off them, and Joe Strummer’s voice came tearing through the speakers, he spoke again.

“I don’t fucking know why,” he said dejectedly, in a way that still-- _god damn it--_ made her heart sink. “So stop asking.”

So she did.

✕

She pressed the tray into the mattress of the guest bed next to his sleeping form, and then sat beside it, shifting the weight enough on the mattress so he blinked his eyes open at her.

He seemed as confused for a moment as she had been the night before. As he scrubbed at his eyes, she lifted a plate of toast from the tray.

“Good morning,” she said formally even while she set the plate on his bare belly over his navel, right where the bedsheet began. “Drink, and more importantly, eat.”

Without a word, he grabbed a piece of toast and took a generous bite.

“Thanks,” he murmured around his mouthful, crumbs tumbling down his chest.

She poured sugar into the cup of tea and stirred as he made quick work of the first and second pieces of toast.

So domestic. So bizarre.

“I booked you a flight,” she said when he took the tea she held out to him, taking a healthy slug as he regarded her evenly.

“I don’t even have my pants on yet,” he said roughly, a smile daring to pull at the edges of his mouth.

“That’s never stopped you from getting on a plane,” she said with a pointed look.

“Correction, I had my pants on when I got _on_ the plane, just not--.”

“--by the time we reached cruising altitude,” she finished for him, having witnessed that particular escapade herself. He chuckled after another gulp of tea.

He was reaching for the orange slices on the plate when she intercepted his reach and took his hand. He stared at where they touched, but didn’t raise his eyes to meet hers.

“Staying here with me and watching cartoons with Piper and drinking yourself into a stupor at dive bars in East London isn’t going to stop it from being real,” she told him gently but firmly, while intertwining their fingers and squeezing gently.

He lifted his eyes then, moist and twinkling in the unforgiving brightness of the morning sun.

“I know,” he murmured, squeezing her hand even more, as if she was lifting him from some depth.

“Good,” she sighed, relieved. “My housekeeper washed your clothes and is pressing them now--,”

“I missed you,” he cut her words off and clamped down harder on her hand as she attempted to slide it out of his.

“What?” she asked, praying he couldn’t feel her pulse galloping in the veins of her hand.

“That’s why I came to London,” he said softly. Before she could ask or say another word he spoke again, the words tumbling out as if he had been holding them in all night.

“I lied when I said I didn’t know. I _knew_. Even before I got to the airport, before I even left the house, as soon as Laurie called, I knew. I needed to see you. And even if I didn’t get the balls to call and just got to breathe the same air in the same city for a night. Even if you’re just this side of pissed at me the whole time. I needed...you. No one else. You’re my...” he slowly brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed them.

“That’s fucking crazy, isn’t it?” He muttered against her knuckles.

For fear of him seeing the tears in her eyes or even worse for them to fall, she leaned across him and put her head on his chest, moving their clasped hands to tuck under her chin.

“No crazier than having you call me in the middle of a Wednesday night from a bar down the road,” she said shakily, swallowing the emotion and grateful he couldn’t see her face even if it did mean he could press his nose into the crown of her hair.

“Far away from...everything, everyone. In my life that I so carefully, purposely constructed...without you,” she finished, her voice fading as she realized just how determined she was to put continents between them without knowing it until that moment.

He used his free hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, and lightly trace the shell of it before laying it on her back, heating the skin with his palm beneath the same silk pajama top she’d worn to meet him the night before.

“Sorry to fuck that up,” he said with what she perceived to be genuine regret. No one was ever more disappointed in David Duchovny than David Duchovny. Not even her.

“You didn’t,” she said, closing her eyes. “Turns out I’m happy you did.”

His chest rumbled under her ear like an ocean wave when he chuckled.

“Trying to imagine your surprise.”

“You can’t,” she said with a short, wet laugh, as a single tear dribbled from her eye closest to his heart, surely tickling the skin there when it fell.

“We could be friends, you know,” he said, as if they both didn’t know it was a dangerous lie she wanted to believe.

**✕**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by the heartbreaking and sexy "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).
> 
> All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for language and chapters to come, pun intended.

_Ever thought of callin’ when_

_You’ve had a few?_

_‘Cause I always do_

✕

**London and New York, respectively, August 2008**

“Oh Jesus, you’re not at the Dolphin again, are you?” Gillian asked with only half-dread as she stirred her lemon ginger tea at the counter in her kitchen. While she waited for his reply she gently placed the warm cup on top of her distended belly, giggling a bit to herself as it balanced there, very likely right over her baby’s butt. She wasn’t due for another two months, but she felt and looked as pregnant as she had when she delivered Piper. _That's a third pregnancy for you._

“No, I’m at...Bradley’s,” David deadpanned, but before she dropped and smashed the cup on the tile floor under her bare feet, he laughed.

“I’m kidding. I’m firmly, safely planted on American soil, far away from you and your city,” he assured her, sadly, wistfully.

_Ah. Here we are again._

Since the last time he drunk dialed her from an _actual_ bar in East London, he sporadically popped up on her caller ID, but decidedly sober. Same for when they met for lunch in New York. Her guard was ever-so-slowly coming down, and it had made it much easier than she ever imagined to fall back into working with him on the film. Maybe the smug bastard was right all along, they could actually be friends.

With a dramatic eye roll she hoped he could somehow sense, she moved the tea cup from her belly to the safety of the counter.

“But drunk just the same?” she asked sweetly, as she cocked her head, holding the phone to her jaw. 

“Getting there,” he said, the humor dropping away from his tone. “But don’t be mad, Gillian. I couldn’t stand it if you were mad--,”

“--since when?” she asked incredulously, trying to stave off the descent into the maudlin he seemed to be slipping into.

“Since now,” he said with a faraway sigh, and she could perfectly imagine the thousand-yard, brooding stare on his features as he said it.

Peering over her shoulder to assure herself that neither Piper nor the baby nor most of all Mark were awake yet, she sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I miss you, blondie,” he murmured, his mouth close to the receiver and the words slightly slurred.

She physically straightened her form, placing her hand on her hip.

“Ok, let’s try again. What is going on that missing me is preferable to facing it?”

He winced audibly. “That’s really fucked up. You know I love you.”

She bit her lip.

“I actually believe you do,” she said carefully, “Even so it takes you a few drinks to admit it. So I ask again, for the third time Duchovny, what’s going on?”

“Some shit is about to come out,” he said miserably.

A rush of icy panic washed over her.

“What do you mean? About... _us_?” she hissed, unconsciously tugging her robe around herself tighter.

“No, no! Not that,” he said, seeming to search for the words, ironic given he never before seemed to have a shortage.

“It’s about me. I fucked up. Literally.”

She leaned over the counter and pressed her hand into her forehead.

“Oh, God, you didn’t--you didn’t get arrested or anything?”

“What? No! What the fuck would I be arrested for?”

“I don’t _know_ , if some girl turned out to be younger--,”

“What the _fuck,_ Gillian!” he barked over the line loud enough it crackled in her ear.

She sprung up and threw up her hands as if he could see her frustration.

“Ok, why don’t you just tell me, before I imagine the worst?”

“Too late, fucking sounds like,” he snapped angrily, dissolving quickly to pathetic again. “Is that what you really think of me?”

“No, David, God. Not at all. But you’re acting so fucking dire. What _happened_?”

The line crackled a bit of static again as he audibly inhaled.

“I’m uh...going to rehab tomorrow. In Arizona. Not for booze, thank God, but uh...for the sex stuff.”

Not anywhere near what she was expecting. _Well, shit._

“Oh,” was her insightful reply.

“Yeah,” he returned.

She took a shaky breath and expelled it forcefully.

“Well, I’m glad--I’m glad you’re getting help. And I’m obviously here for you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he replied. “It’s not--I mean I wanted to call to tell you that, but there’s something else.”

The same icy dreadful wave hit her again and she braced herself on the counter. “What is it?”  
  


“You weren’t part of it.”

“What does...that mean?”

“What we had,” he stopped short of naming it. “Was not because of that.”

“Oh…ok,” she chewed on her lip again.

“I want you--I _need_ you to know that,” he continued, pausing, she imagined, to take another drink before continuing. “Because people are going to say all kinds of fucked up shit and the press is going to make shit up and act like every woman I’ve ever been with was no more than a bump of coke, they’re going to speculate _even more_ about us--,”

“David--,”

“No, _listen_ . I don’t give a shit about what they’ll say. I mean, I _give_ a shit, but only because of Tea...and you,” he took a steadying breath over the line, and her hand itched to touch him. She settled for cupping her own cheek, and pressing her nails along her cheekbone under her eye.

“I might be an addict but I would have-- _we_ would have--even if I wasn’t. It wasn’t like that. For me, for us," he asserted firmly but softly in her ear.

She lowered herself onto one of the barstools near her, feeling heavy in a way that had nothing to do with advanced pregnancy.

“Ok,” she murmured, a single tear running down her cheek.

“You do know that, right?” he pressed, his voice barely a whisper now.

“I do,” she swallowed, keeping her voice even.

“Good. Because-- _good_ ,” he laughed quickly with relief. “Because I’m sitting here feeling fucking sick that this shit could taint the goddamn few good moments in my life.”

“It won’t,” she assured him gently, regaining her composure. “I mean, I knew you were a horny fucking fuck but...you have a good heart. You always did.”

“Thanks, babe,” he laughed again, and she held the phone tighter as if to pull him closer.

“You’re the one person who...well, you _know_ me. If you don’t think I’m an asshole then I really must not be,” he mused.

“Oh, you’re an asshole,” she assured him, taking a huge gulp of the now-cold ginger tea to soothe the emotional rasp in her voice.

He laughed for real this time, the sadness discernible but far less than when the call began.

“‘That’s my redhead. No bitterness, no recrimination, just a good swift left to the jaw’.”

As he quoted her favorite movie, she felt her eyes burn with tears again.

“When you get out we’ll do a revival. ‘The Vancouver Story’. I’ll even dye my hair red again for authenticity.”

“Agreed, but only if it’s rated NC-17.”

“That kind of talk is why you’re in this shit now,” she scolded without heat before adding, softly, “Go heal, please.”

“That’s the plan.”

“I'll be here."

"I know."

✕


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by the heartbreaking and sexy "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).
> 
> All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for language and smutty chapters such as this one.

_Sad to see you go_

_Was sorta hopin’ that you’d stay_

✕

**Los Angeles, July 2011**

He told everyone, including her, that he had a prior engagement.

After his part of the interview, he’d made a big show of getting his coat, even calling the car service.

But as he stood on the sidewalk outside of the Wilshire smoking his cigarette and he saw the Escalade pull up with Amir driving as promised, he didn’t move.

At least not to leave.

“Hey man,” he said, leaning in the passenger side window of the car. “Pretend you had to drive me to the airport. Go grab a drink or something and collect the fare.”

“I’m not supposed to do that,” the clean-cut kid replied cautiously, the smell of his Acqua di Gio filling the leather enclosement of the car, as he eyed David and contemplated a future in which he was called to testify as some kind of alibi for the guy in the plaid button-up shirt he didn’t recognize.

David peeled a fifty from his wallet.

“Fine,” and as he slid the $50 under the passenger visor, he gave him alternative instructions.

The timing worked out perfectly. Not thirty minutes later, he was sitting at the tiny dining table in her hotel room with two greasy bags of cheeseburgers, his bare feet kicked up on the opposite chair, when she opened the door.

“Boo!” he deadpanned, to which she gave him exactly the response expected.

“Jesus _Christ!”_ she shrieked, jumping back against the wall with her hand over her heart. When her wide eyes registered him and his opposite-of-threatening pose, she exhaled harshly and closed her eyes.

“You fucking fuck,” she breathed, stepping then away from the wall and tossing her purse on the nearby side table. “Is this how you get your rocks off now?”

“I’m practicing for a future role.”

“As who, Ted Bundy?” she asked as she kicked off her heels, losing three inches of height, and padded over to the dining table sniffing. “In-N-Out?”

“The one and only thing this state has going for it,” he offered, pushing the bag of fries, now half eaten, towards her. She grabbed one from the bag and bit it off decisively, glaring at him.

“I thought you had a ‘prior engagement’,” she asked, chewing with her eyes narrowed at him and saying the last two words with a mockingly haughty tone.

“I did,” he admitted, truthfully. While waiting for Amir to return with their dinner, he had hurriedly texted his agent and cancelled a dinner meeting. “If anyone asks, I have the flu.”

“Why not syphilis?” she asked, taking another fry and swatting his hand away as he reached too. “Much more on brand.”

“True, but it’s just not contagious in the same casual way.”

“I’ve heard it’s _most_ contagious the casual way,” she teased, plopping down next to him at the table and digging into one of the rolled up tops of a bag with burgers.

“What about your evening? Can’t believe you don’t have better plans than this,” he asked as she took a dainty sip from one of the cups, decided she liked it, and took a longer pull before answering.

“Other? Maybe,” she regarded him with a half-smile over the plastic cup. “Better? Eh.”

“High praise,” he murmured, tipping the chair back as he spoke, holding her gaze. He knew it unnerved her, as she cocked her head to the side slightly, raised her eyebrow.

“I’m meeting someone for a drink in a while,” she answered vaguely, examining the burger.

“A date?” David asked over a bite of his own food, almost choking.

“Nothing that official,” she replied dismissively, frowning at the burger and digging two well-manicured nails between the burger patty and the top of the bun.

“No pickles,” he assured her. She smiled gratefully, pulled her fingers out, and cleaned the ends with her tongue.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you first,” he said with an eyebrow waggle. She glared at him, index fingertip still in her mouth, and after a beat, dramatically moved it back into her mouth to the base of the finger, hollowed her cheeks, and then drew it out slowly, flicking her tongue over the nail at the very end.

“You’re a pervert,” he mused with a laugh, though he had to adjust his jeans suddenly, and she threw a napkin at him.

“Hi, I’m Gillian,” she said with exaggerated brightness, and he laughed again. 

They ate their food leisurely, with easy conversation about the event.

“I don’t know if I said this,” she said after they finished eating, avoiding his eyes as she made a fuss of brushing crumbs from the front of his shirt for him, “but thank you for doing this. I know it’s right up there with a prostate exam as far as fun for you.”

He considered the comparison and then nodded, earning an easy laugh from her. 

“Eh, it’ll be good practice. For the 20-year anniversary I’m sure they’ll apply the thumbscrews to get us to do the convention circuit,” he mused aloud, leaning forward to set his elbows on the table and simultaneously lean towards her. “Turns out I don’t mind so much with my bestie.”

She coughed on the sip of her drink she had been in the middle of swallowing.

“ _Bestie_? Jesus Christ, how young is your new girlfriend teaching you such slang?” she demanded, pressing her hand to her chest in shock.

“What, you don’t like that?” West called you that the other day when I told her I was coming. “Daddy, is Gillian your bestie?”” he told her, pitching his voice high to imitate his 12-year-old.

“And what did you tell her?” Gillian asked with an incredulous frown.

“I said, Of fucking course,” David confirmed. “Even paid a dollar into the swear jar to emphasize my point.”

Gillian tilted her head and fluttered her eyelashes. “I’m touched.”

“You should be, it was my last,” David held her gaze again. “I don’t have a girlfriend, by the way. Sly way to ask.”

“I wasn’t asking,” Gillian said with a snort, setting her cup down and leaning back to cross her arms over her chest. “And when have I ever had to be sly with you?”

“I was puzzled too, back in the day you’d just arch your eyebrow and ask point blank with an unblinking stare who I was fucking this week. But I’m not. Currently.”

“Fascinating trivia,” she said with a nod and feigned--he hoped--disinterest. “Well, I should be going.”

“Stay a while,” he said quietly, still holding her gaze evenly. _I miss you. I miss this._

Their phone calls and emails had become more frequent over the past year, in truth she was always a tap away and he had come to rely on that, but having her in front of him, where he could reach out and tuck her hair back when it fell in her face and she could pick imaginary lint off of her shirt and he could casually put a hand on her lower back or hip when they moved through a crowd--it absolutely terrified him to lose that again so quickly.

Her mouth quirked in a cautious half-smile. “Haven’t I already?”

“Have you? Doesn’t feel like it,” he said, his voice still low. “We spent a day being absolutely fucking adorable for the fans but I--wanted you to myself for a while.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Oh my God, I’m just glad I remembered they were there!”

“Except that one time,” he joked, a smile spreading across his face involuntarily as he remembered how she blushed at the event. “You _totally_ forgot it wasn’t just us.”

“I did,” she admitted, covering her face with her hands and giggling. “Glad nothing truly embarrassing came out. Thanks for covering for me.”

“I’m used to it,” he shrugged, still watching her, drinking her in. “Stay a while, Anderson.”

To emphasize his point, he leaned the scant distance between them and gently, briefly brushed his mouth against hers, the salt from the food and the innate sweetness of her sending electric current from his belly to his balls. He took it as a great sign that she didn’t slap him, and an even bigger one that just before he pulled back, her tongue brushed the edge of his bottom lip.

_Jesus, how does she taste even better now?_

“Funny. Feels like I’ve stayed too long,” she murmured, attempting to sound indifferent but her voice raspy and her eyes half-closed, completely betraying her.

“Is that a problem?” he whispered, repeating the action again, slightly bolder now, pressing her mouth open with his tongue so he could rub it intimately against hers.

“David,” she murmured, her tone a warning but her mouth drawing him in.

“I’m sorry…” he said after breaking the kiss and sitting back just slightly but not enough that he couldn’t still feel her breath, now slightly labored, on his mouth. “Nah, I’m not.”

“Nah, you’re not,” she agreed, and after the longest three seconds of his life, stood. “Things are just...complicated right now.”

David sighed heavily, crumpled up a bag from the table, and tossed it to the trash.

“What else is new?”

Gillian was across the room now, wiggling her feet back into her heels and deliberately putting distance between them.

“Except I’m not 25 anymore,” she told the floor as she popped her foot into the second shoe.

“Neither am I, God knows,” he said dejectedly, rising from the chair and moving toward her. She leaned with her back against the wall, crossing her arms again over the silk red blouse as he neared her. With the additional three inches, she was eye-level with his chin when stopped in front of her.

“So this is different?” she asked softly, sliding her hand up his shirt, resting it above his heart and pressing her nails into it ever so briefly.

“I mean how different do you want to get? Want me to pee on you or something?” he asked jokingly, but his voice thickened as he wound his arms around her hips and pulled her against him. He greedily took her lips again, pressing his tongue into her mouth that she opened obligingly, purring lightly in her throat.

“You know what I mean,” she said against his mouth with a glare, counterbalanced by the affection in her touch as she cupped his jaw and smoothed the cleft in his chin with her thumb. 

That was them. Anger to tenderness and back again, again, and apparently, again.

He brushed her hair back from her face and massaged circles on her cheekbone with his thumb.

“I want it to be. Isn’t that fucking weird?”

She laughed hard and wetly, moving her thumb up the run it along his lower lip.

“Really fucking weird,” she pulled his face down to hers and captured his mouth, nibbling along the bottom lip he knew she loved so much. When she released him, he kissed his way from the edge of her lips to the beauty mark above them to her cheek to her ear. He snagged her earlobe briefly, digging his teeth in briefly before releasing it with a wet pop.

She whimpered, in a way he recognized instantly, so he slid his hand inward on her belly and then traveled down, resting between her legs. As he suspected, her tiny swatch of panties were already damp, as was the skin beyond them.

“Not so different in some ways,” he said easily, as if he were commenting on the weather, despite the fact his hands were in her pants. He pulled his head back to see her face, and she had her lip between her teeth.

“Not at all,” she murmured, gasping slightly as he parted her lips with his fingers and stroked between them deftly, but otherwise had a poker face when she said, “I didn’t have a date. But I knew it would get your jealous juice flowing.”

He gently pulled his hand from between her legs and pressed one to his lips.

“Jealous juice, is that what you call--?”

She cut him off by pushing up on her toes to bite his lip before sucking it into her mouth.

“Not that,” she said as she moved her hands down to unzip his jeans.

“Oh?” he asked, assisting her by stepping back as she pushed the half undone jeans down just enough to free him from his underwear. “Oh,” he agreed as she slid down to her knees, staring up at him.

“Oh,” she replied, wrapping her lips gingerly around the head of his already straining erection. They formed a perfect red heart over the tip, and the beauty mark served as a sexual punctuation mark.

“Fuck, Gilly,” he muttered, grabbing her hair in his fist and gently guiding her head up and down in smooth strokes.

“Hmm,” she purred when she stood up, and in doing so replaced her lips with her hand, repeating the same three agonizing strokes as she said, “maybe different is overrated.”

He swiftly pushed her slacks down her narrow hips so they pooled at her feet and hoisted her up, leveraging her back against the wall as he used his hands to wrap her legs around his midsection.

As he angled himself at her entrance he pressed his forehead to hers. Her eyes were darkened to nearly indigo with arousal, and they clouded further with confusion as he stared at her, unmoving.

“What is it?” she asked breathily, her moist middle hovering tantalizingly over his own slick head.

He kissed her again, gently and almost sweetly, and held her gaze while he did it.

“Of course it’s different,” he whispered into her mouth. “Jesus, I--I know you feel it, too.”

She inhaled sharply when he pressed inside her shallowly, allowing her to adjust to his size.

“I do,” she said, dropping her forehead to his shoulder. “It’s fucking scary.”

He withdrew and stroked back in deeper, more assertively, turning his face into her hair.

“You feel so--fucking--good,” he panted as he pumped more, already having to concentrate on not coming, like a teenager at his first go in the back of the family car. She wasn’t making things easier, clutching his dick greedily with her walls every time he stroked and urging him with her nails digging into his back under his shirt.

Pressing her into the wall and gripping her with one hand, he brought the other back to the center where they were joined and drew his finger confidently and knowingly over the swollen nub of her clit. 

“Fuck, David--,” she groaned as ground her forehead into his shoulder. “I’m going to--,”

“--Come for me, baby. Do it for _me_ . You always used to--hold out,” he managed, his cock beginning its telltale tingling dance when he drove it home again. “Just let go and come for _me.”_

He could tell she was still fighting it, like she used to, when she couldn’t stop fucking him but also despised him. Which he deserved, all of it. He knew that. He had thought the past few years had dissolved some of that resentment, in fact, he knew they had--but, old habits and all that.

He was determined to start some new ones.

“Come on, Gilly,” he nibbled his way up the line of her neck, sinking his teeth into her earlobe again. “Come for me.”

“Oh--Oh--Ok,” she gasped as she arched her back. He felt the spasm tighten her abdomen and the ripple of it course down the muscles to where they clamped around his cock.

“Good--girl,” he managed before the last stroke that undid him. 

“Fuck,” he drew out the word as he felt himself empty inside her, dropping his forehead against the wall behind her and gulping in the heavy, sex-scented air around them.

She weakly slid her legs down, landing unevenly on the heels she still wore, and slumped back against the wall, though still gripping his back.

“Uh huh. Pretend I said something witty,” she mumbled, closing her eyes as the last glitters of the orgasm faded from her nerve endings. “What did we used to talk about after?”

“I think your usual parting line was, ‘I fucking hate you, Duchovny’,” he supplied, turning to gently kiss her cheek despite the content of his sentence. She laughed again, deep from her belly.

“Yeah, that sounds like me,” she turned to meet his mouth, first for a quick peck but then drawing him in deeper before murmuring, “Maybe next time.”

“Next time?” he asked with a weak laugh. “Another fifteen years from now?”

“However long you need to recover, old man,” she said with an arched eyebrow. “I was thinking more like fifteen _minutes_.”

✕


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by the heartbreaking and sexy "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).
> 
> All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for language and smutty chapters such as this one.

_I’m sorry to interrupt_

_It’s just I’m constantly on the cusp of tryin’ to kiss you_

  
✕

**San Diego, October 2013**

“Mulder, it’s me.”

He couldn’t help a burst of laughter that rose heartily from his chest, filling the otherwise empty hotel room. “You’re so fucking _stupid_.”

He could hear the pout in her voice. “That’s not the line! It’s ‘Talk to me, Scully!’”

“Where are you?” He asked, quickly popping out of the supine position he’d been in bed, taking a quick look in the mirror as he passed and tousling his hair a bit. They hadn’t seen each other in weeks, which was an excruciating amount of time this particular year, with all the 20th anniversary events, press, and studio meetings to finally get the third movie or miniseries or what the fuck ever up and running. He’d seen her more—and more of her—this year than since the series was still shooting, and unlike back then, they were decidedly lighter without the old baggage. They still had _some_ baggage, and the secrecy—which almost wasn’t a secret when she flat out told Leno they were (sometimes) living together, that was the last time he was letting her do an interview alone while baked—somehow, it felt _light_ . Light, and freer than ever before, and only occasionally worrisome—like when his nosy ass neighbors got the photos of them fucking in his pool and he had to take a huge chunk out of his slush fund to buy them off and they _still_ managed to get leaked to the _Russians_ some-fucking-how.

So maybe there was still a shit ton of baggage, and if it wasn’t _actually_ lighter, it seemed to be because it seemed that they were finally ready to carry it.

Add to that, he was plain old getting used to having her around, and when the chance to be together alone even briefly popped up between filming and family and any and all of the other lesser bullshit, he was almost embarrassed how giddy he felt, like a kid waiting to pick up his prom date.

“Tracking your scent. I think I’m close...” her voice brought him back to reality, and he swore he heard it through his hotel room door.

Phone still pressed to his ear, he tossed open the door just as she jogged past, her overnight bag slung over her shoulder, phone pressed to her ear, and blonde wavy hair shimmying over her shoulder with each movement.

In that moment he felt like the Grinch, his heart swelling three times the size and breaking the Grinch-o-meter. He even put a hand to his chest.

_Damned used to having her around._

“Hey, Scully!” He yell-whispered, dropping the phone down to his side.

She whirled around with an explosion of giggles, dropping the hand holding the phone and her overnight bag. She quickly popped her insane wedge heels off her feet and sprinted towards him, her wrap dress fluttering around her like fairy wings.

“Billy Miles!” She shrieked as she bound toward him and leapt into his open arms, her legs automatically finding his hips and locking onto them.

“Hi, baby,” he murmured against her mouth before turning them so her back was on the wall. She clutched his hair in her hands and massaged his scalp as he devoured her, assuring himself that yes his girl still tasted the same and assuring her that yes she _is_ his girl, no matter what they together or separately told the press.

Another giggle bubbled up behind her lips and hummed against his mouth and he felt himself smiling involuntarily. 

He was skating his mouth down her throat when she tugged decidedly harder on his hair to still him.

“Not in the hallway for fuck’s sake!” She whispered through giggles, her tone touched by the rasp she only got when she was really turned on.

Still controlled by her hands gripping his hair, he grunted and walked them into his room. 

He was never happier that he had opted out of a suite when not six steps into the room his knees hit the bed. He pitched forward and half-dropped her on the mattress.

“Caveman sex, huh?” She asked breathlessly as he pulled his t-shirt up over his head. He made a fist and pounded his chest. She burst out laughing again and he leaned over her to cover her mouth with his and drink it all in.

“Careful, Duchovny,” she whispered, pushing him back with one hand and untying her dress with the other. “It almost seems like you missed me.”

He brought his hands to where she was untying and spread the fabric apart, exposing her creamy belly.

“Hell yeah,” he murmured against her belly button, flicking the diamond ring there with his tongue. “Why don’t you wear this more?”

“Because I’m a grown ass _wo—_ ,” she gasped as his tongue snaked down the sensitive and familiar line from her navel. “ _—man_ , I don’t know. I forget. Just keep doing that. I’ll wear a goddamn ice pick in it if you just—keep—doing—,” she squeezed her thighs on either side of his head and arched her back. He brought his head up quickly. She glared at his foolish grin.

“You’re cruel,” she pouted again, and he nuzzled her lips with his, letting her taste herself. She nipped at him just hard enough to leave a mark on his lower lip, looped her legs around him and pulled him down to grind the distended part of his jeans against her middle.

“No, that is cruel,” he murmured, and in a fluid motion rolled her onto her front. She squeaked in surprise and delight, and before she could make a signature bratty remark, he freed himself from his pants and slid himself inside her, holding still as he brought his hands around her front to cup her exposed breasts.

“Maybe I did miss you—a little,” he admitted, dropping a kiss to her shoulder as he moved slowly inside her, at the same time brushing his thumbs and just a bit of nail against her nipples.

“I couldn’t—tell,” she breathed, holding herself up on her hands, curling her black-painted fingernails into the white of the bedspread. He continued the circular stroking around her nipple as he pumped slowly.

“But did you miss me?” He asked right into her ear, tasting the fine, dewy sweat that was starting to collect on her temple.

“Who are—you again?” she managed a thick, wicked laugh, curling her fingers again and doing what he could only imagine was a Kegel on his cock.

“Scully, it’s me,” he said as he sunk his teeth into her shoulder and drew one hand down from her breast to attend to her clit.

“Ffffffuck you, _Mulder_ ,” she groaned moments later as the orgasm shattered her, causing her arms to wobble and give out, so her forehead dropped to the mattress.

“Such language,” he commented as he rolled his hips, still nestled inside her. “Did you miss me, Gilly?”

“Yes, _God_ ,” she rasped, propping herself shakily up on her hands again, arching her back so as to deliciously tug on his cock. “I missed you.”

Several minutes later, he was dozing against her—both still half-dressed—when she sprang up.

“Oh shit!” She shrieked, hurriedly trying disentangle from him and to tie her dress back in place and failing miserably as her breasts refused to cooperate.

“What?!” He asked groggily, about to drift into a perfect post-coital nap.

“I left my fucking bag in the hallway!” She told him as she laughed, finally covering herself enough to run out of the room—though anyone who had eyes and saw her would know damn well what she’d just been doing.

She reappeared moments later with the bag in hand and tossed it to the floor so she could pounce back into bed on top of him.

“Oh, hi,” she said as she pressed a close-mouthed kiss to his mouth. “I don’t think I actually said that yet.”

He brought his hands up to rest on either side of her butt, and squeezed gently.

“You didn’t, and I feel so used,” he pouted. She steepled her fingers on his chest and rested her chin on top of them. 

“I did miss you,” she told him, her eyes wide as they searched his face adoringly. “I just wanted to say it when I wasn’t about to come so you know I meant it.”

His heart actually fucking fluttered. _This woman._

“I know,” he told her, and pulled her up to kiss her full on her mouth, and then again, and again, and again—because soon they’d be in the spotlight with microphones shoved in their faces and hundreds of eyes on them and he’d be gulping water or chewing gum or touching her arms or hair or anywhere that wasn’t her lips to relieve the pressure and to keep himself from kissing her just like this, again and again and again.

✕


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by the heartbreaking and sexy "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).
> 
> All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for language and chapters to come, pun intended.

_Maybe I’m too busy_

_Busy bein’ yours_

_To fall for somebody new_

✕

**New York, May 2014**

She was still half-Blanche--only the left side of her makeup scrubbed off and the pins out of her hair (which still stood up crazily from being up for so long) and her last scene costume of a slinky satin robe falling off her shoulder--when her dressing room door opened and he slipped in.

“No autographs please!” she mimicked in her best Garbo accent, turning in the chair as he shut the door behind him.

“Really? I had such the perfect place, and I wanted you to leave a lip print--,” he said as she strolled to her, leaning down with his hands on either arm of the chair. She stretched up enough to kiss him, and then rub her mouth across his, leaving a bright crimson smudge of stage-grade lipstick across his lips.

“There you go, sir, now carry on, my boyfriend will be here any moment,” she instructed dismissively. He smiled and pressed his Joker-like mouth against hers.

“I missed you,” he told her, dropping his forehead against hers after the kiss.

She smiled and met his eyes, an inch from her own. “How was California?”

“Wretched, of course. Except for seeing the kids. I miss them,” he said dejectedly, backing away to collapse onto the couch across the small room.

“I know, babe,” she said softly, turning back to the mirror. “Sorry, give me a moment to take off my war paint.”

“Hey, Gill,” he said softly, seriously, drawing her eyes down to meet his in the reflection of her mirror.

“What?”

“ _Transcendent_.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“I mean it.”

“You do not.”

“I really do,” he said with a laugh, leaning forward and watching her. “You owned that fucking theater tonight. Williams couldn’t have imagined a better Blanche. Vivien Leigh was green with envy. From the grave, of course, where she’s probably already a little...green.”

“You’re starting to sound like Kim,” she said sadly, pausing with the make-up sponge half-way to her cheek. “He really made me...believe in myself.”

“He just said what the rest of us were thinking,” David shrugged, running his hands through his hair. “Even if we were too jealous or stubborn to say it out loud.”

She arched an eyebrow at him in the mirror, and continued with the ritual cleansing of about six pounds of foundation.

“Do you have plans?” she asked as he started thumbing through some magazine she had stuffed in the corner of the couch.

“I’m looking at them. Lead the way, baby.”

“Devil’s Den. With the cast,” she said quickly, and turned when his face cringed. “I promised, and then completely forgot you were getting in tonight.”

David took a moment, and then smiled at her. “Sounds like a devil of a time.”

She turned back to the mirror for the last time, and as she swiped the sponge across her eye, asked mischievously. “Have I ever given you anything less?”

✕

It was a more than tolerable evening, he’d admitted to her in the Uber on the way to her apartment. She reached out and poked his cheek dimple with her nail in an attempt to “physically deflate his overblown ego,” as she had begun doing in 1993, and they both laughed. He snatched her hand as she tried to retract it and held it lightly between them on the seat for the rest of the ride. This perfect little parallel universe where they were just a couple out with their coworkers, heading home for some sex and snacks and sleep.

He was buzzed enough as he thought of this that when he looked at the stars above them--probably just streetlights, but he would pretend they were stars--he wished they were in a spaceship, zooming off to that parallel universe right this moment. He could live there. He could _really_ live there.

He was having the same thought when he took a hit from her joint two hours later, laying naked with his bare ass on the Persian rug in her living room that probably cost more than a year of West’s tuition, watching the same stars/lights/UFOs twinkle over Manhattan’s skyline across the river.

“Where are you?” she asked huskily. Her voice always changed when she smoked, he was surprised she’d suggested it, and she groaned when she told him it would mean a week of nothing but hot water with lemon after but proceeded to light the joint anyway, tucking reality away for just a bit, as was their practice.

“What do you mean? I’m right here,” he gestured as she laid her head into the nook of his shoulder and took her own hit.

“I know. And I’m so glad,” she murmured, nuzzling his chest hair as she wrapped her naked leg around his and pulled a blanket across herself. “But you’re somewhere else, here,” she finished, tapping his temple.

“You’re just stoned,” he muttered, plucking the joint from her fingers.

“Yesssss,” she agreed languidly, but her eyes were lucidly blinking up at him, wide and blue and wet. “But I’m right.”

He held her gaze, and swore he could see the stars of their parallel universe twinkling in her irises. 

Instead of telling her, he murmured, “I was just back at the bar, punching that kid in the face when he put his hand on your knee.”

She scrunched her face up absurdly. “Jealousy, thy name is Duchovny? Really? I once made out with the same girl as you, not five minutes later. I think I sucked your gum out of her mouth and it still had flavor.”

“Some girl,” he agreed, remembering that little drunken romp in Vancouver not unfondly. “Not the guy who presses himself up on you during a play six nights a week.”

“No need to worry, babe,” she said against his collarbone. “I only have eyes--and knees and various other body parts--for you.”

“That so?” he asked, holding the joint before her so she could reach out with just her mouth.

“Yeah!” she coughed, a small puff of smoke escaping. “I mean...I mean yeah.”

He reached across for what he hoped was an ashtray and put the joint in it.

“So you’re not…” he bobbed his head.

“No. I mean...no.”

“No, or... _no_?” he asked, emphasizing her pause.

“No, David,” she said, against swishing her lips across his chest.

“No. Huh.” 

“Don’t look at me like that,” she squinted from below his chin. She stretched like a drowsy cat. “I’m busy enough as it is. Massaging my schedule to get this time, when the boys are with Mark and Piper is gone…”

“So it’s a matter of scheduling?” he asked, not sure what he wanted her answer to be.

She knew. For a moment, in her eyes, he saw the same longing for things to be other than they were.

Instead of telling him, she said, “Among other things,” with a suggestive tone.

“Such as?”

“Allow me to demonstrate,” she murmured as she dipped her head below the blanket.

“Ok, point taken,” he murmured, allowing her to distract him from the implications of his line of questioning. What good would it have done? What would have changed? He was back to California in a few weeks, she would eventually go on to London again. The gravitational pull of this, their universe, never seemed to let up for more than a few stolen moments.

When he came, he saw stars, and as they dozed off on the rug after, they faded from his vision like they always did.

✕


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by the heartbreaking and sexy "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).
> 
> All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for language and smutty chapters like this one.

_ There’s this tune I found _

_ That makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat _

_ Until I fall asleep _

✕

**New York, 12 May 2015**

“Are you going to come?” David asked as he flipped the vinyl over on the record player, and Neil Young’s “Helpless” poured out of the speakers and filled his bedroom.

“Not presently,” she said sleepily, grinning like a Chesire cat as he joined her in bed.

“Tonight, smart ass,” he clarified into her bellybutton, which twinkled with the aquamarine barbell he’d picked out for her because it matched her eyes and maybe also because he wanted a little piece of him inside her at all times. 

“Oh, the shhhhhhow,” she exhaled as he slid his tongue just on the underside of her panties. “Sure. Why not.”

“I don’t know. You slithered out of it every other time,” he mumbled against her hip bone.

“I resent that, oh…” she arched her back and bit her lip. “I never  _ slithered _ .”

“Right. I think the kids call it, “ghosting”,” he agreed, delicately tapping her clit with the top of his tongue.

“Hmmm, yeah.”

“Gillian.”

“Yes?”

“Come to my show.”

She scowled down at him as he rested his chin on her mons. 

“I will! I was going to, I swear.”

“As my girlfriend,” he instructed, dipping his head again.

“Okay, whatever you--what?” she grabbed his hair.

“You heard me,” he continued, not giving in to her tug on his roots as he teased the edges of her lips.

“Have you lost your mi--,” she groaned out the last syllable, “--nd?”

“Yeah, I think I lost it down here somewhere, 20-odd years ago. Trying to find it now,” he said nonchalantly like he was looking for his keys. He lavished her with a few open-mouth kisses.

“Say yes.”

“David, I don’t know...we can’t play fucking coy with the press constantly and then just--,”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Shall I name the reasons?”

“I’m not saying I’m going to give you my class ring or a corsage or some shit,” he said, regrettably for both of them, propping himself up to look at her face.

“But I don’t want to have to act any different with you for fucking once. I just want  _ you _ there, for  _ me _ . Not for the press, not for the show, not for the fans...just for me,” he explained, practically pouting, before adding, “That’s how I like you best.”

She considered him for a moment, before sliding her legs so her calves rested on either of his shoulders.

“ _ Best _ ?”

“Well, second best,” he agreed, dipping his head in again.

“Hmmm I just don’t know,  _ oh _ \--,” the orgasm snuck up on her, urged on when he slid two fingers inside her and curled in a “come here” gesture that did it every time.

“You fucker,” she breathed as he moved up over her, bracing himself on his hands on either side of her head.

“That a yes?” he asked sweetly and innocently, the irony being she could see herself glistening on his chin.

“It’s a we’ll see,” she glared at him, holding on to the last shred of her willpower that she could as she trembled underneath him.

“Not good enough,” he said with a chaste kiss to her mouth while simultaneously sliding his cock into her slick folds. “I need a yes.”

“If you think you’re going to fuck it out--,” she began, clamping down on her lip as he rolled his hips slowly with each filling thrust. “ _ Fuck _ .”

“I want you to sit backstage and watch me from a place no one else gets to,” he said softly, kissing her mouth and cheeks and chin between each word. “I want you to come out at the end and kiss me on the mouth in front of  _ everyone _ . I want you to stand next to me and shake a tambourine or your ass or something like the lead singer’s girl would.”

“I--can’t--,” she attempted, and failed, to argue.

“Yes,” he said with strain as he kept his thrusts controlled even as he felt himself starting to unravel. “You  _ can _ . You  _ would _ , if we were alone, if we were anybody else. You wouldn’t think twice about it.”

“But--we’re--not,” she grasped his hair again when he lowered his mouth to caress her nipples, while increasing the depth and speed of his thrusts. “David, I’m going to--,”

“I know we’re not,” he murmured, nuzzling each nipple with his nose as he spoke. “But just for tonight, let’s act like we are.”

“Just tonight?”

“For now, for tonight,” he reached between them with his hand. “For me, Gillian.”

“Oh--oh--okay--,” she arched again and bit her lip as she came apart again beneath him, color springing to her pale cheeks as she panted.

“Thank you, baby,” he murmured into her hair as he joined her.

✕


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by the heartbreaking and sexy "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).
> 
> All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A healthy dose of angst and sex just in time for the weekend. Rated for language and the smutty chapters.

_So have you got the guts?_

_Been wonderin’ if your heart’s still open_

_And if so, I wanna know what time it shuts_

✕

**New York, June 2016**

“So are you going to tell me where the landmine is or am I just going to keep talking and find out the hard way?” She practically spat the words at the back of his head as he strode out of the studio, his long legs mercilessly stretching to leave her behind as it took her almost three steps his one to keep up.

“What are you talking about?” He asked around an unlit cigarette, as he slammed on his lighter unsuccessfully attempting to light it.

She reached to take it from him and light it, but he snatched it away and threw it in a nearby trash can. She bit her lip and swallowed her anger, pushing her wind blown hair behind her face.

_This time is different. Break bad habits. Don’t call him a fuck face. At least not yet._

“You. Moody, and not the character,” she tried to lighten the mood, hustling to keep up as he strode down to where his car was parked. “You scowled through the whole damn shoot.”

“No, not the whole shoot,” he corrected her with a snap of his neck toward her with the sole purpose to regard her disdainfully. “Just when you gave the photographer a lap dance.”

“As someone who has _actually had a lap dance from me,_ you know that’s not what happened, so what is up your ass?” She snapped back, drawing stares from a pack of moms pushing their children down the Manhattan block in their chic black strollers. She relented and let her hair curl back around her and with any luck disguise her face.

“Forget it, Gillian,” he snapped again, stalking out into the street to open the driver’s side door.

As he threw himself into the seat and the car roared to life, she planted her hands on her hips.

“Should I just get an Uber?” She asked hotly, tears of frustration and rage burning her eyes so much his face grew fuzzy.

“Do whatever the hell you want, don’t change a lifetime habit on my account,” he snarled through the open passenger window.

She stared at him, willing him to fucking explain himself or at least just say something remotely human instead of the Mr. Hyde monster he’d been for the last several hours, not moving from the sidewalk. He held her gaze for a moment before scoffing, turning to the steering wheel, and whipping the car into the surge of traffic, leaving her standing there as if he didn’t fall asleep last night with his head resting on her naked belly or wake up that morning with her mouth wrapped around his cock.

“Oh, fuck off,” she muttered, yanking her phone out of her tiny bag and pulling up the car service app.

✕

She was sitting on the couch in her apartment watching an old movie that night, wearing nothing but a cotton waffle weave robe, scrubbed clean of makeup and perfume and every vestige of glamour, when the door opened.

She turned her head and silently watched him saunter into the room and around the front of the couch.

He wasn’t smiling, or scowling, just holding her gaze as he leaned down and kissed her. Not tentative or apologetic, he immediately entered her mouth and took it over, his intention clear. He slid his hand up into her damp hair, tugging suggestively on it as he pressed her into the couch.

She wanted to take it as an apology, fucked up as it was, but that wasn’t what they did. Not anymore. It wasn’t 1997 and this was _supposed to be different._ Real apologies that weren’t just words or sex but actual changed behavior and not ripping open the same wounds over and over again when one of them got pissed.

But his taste in her mouth, the primitive, delicious weight of him on top of her, and the distracting, consuming sensations of his hands exploring her body...she wanted to remember it.

He pushed the robe off her shoulders and kissed the column of her neck, down her chest, over her breasts, nipping and licking before moving lower.

She felt blindly for his belt buckle, worked it open and him out. She stroked the length of him expertly as he shrugged off his jacket. She let her legs fall open as he positioned himself above her, one of his hands back on her breast as the other guided himself into her.

The first time she heard his voice since he’d walked in was when he buried himself to the hilt inside her, groaning a short _Hmmm._ She wrapped her legs around his hips and locked her ankles at the small of his back. She brought her hands to his face, bringing him down to kiss her.

She held him there with her mouth, trying to greedily swallow as many of his kisses she could. Her eyes were open as she did, and she watched his closed eyes, closed off face, her heart cracking and tears running secretively from the corners of her eyes.

Maybe that’s why his eyes were closed. He knew.

She could blame them on the orgasm. It shattered her completely, leaving aftershocks of sensations in its wake. Her body was ultra responsive as if her nerve endings knew to soak up these final moments even if her heart wasn’t entirely on board just yet.

“I’m sorry, Gill,” he said into the crook of her neck after a long silence, the ending credits of _Indiscreet_ trilling through the apartment.

She blinked back the last of the few tears she’d shed and shifted beneath him so he was forced to move and allow her to sit up.

“Forget about it,” she murmured, resinching her robe and rubbing her face.

Half on his side on the couch watching her, he ran a hand down her back.

“I _am_ sorry,” he whispered again, the pitch of his voice perfect to lure her in and forget everything she’d been thinking for weeks that had come to painful head today.

“I said forget it, David,” she snapped, technically at him but mostly at herself, steeling herself for what she had to do.

“I thought we were going to do the actually apologizing and actually forgiving each other thing normal healthy people do?” He asked half-sarcastically and half-cautiously, sensing her mood was not the typical cuddly post-coital kitten he had gotten used to.

_He really had gotten used to that, hadn’t he?_

“Healthy. Hmm,” she said the word with disdain as she strode into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge.

As she shut the door hard, he sat up and fixed his pants.

“Seriously? How long are you going to be a bitch about this afternoon? I was an asshole, _I get it,_ and I repent. Mea fucking culpa.”

“No,” she bit the word off as she swallowed a mouthful of water that did nothing for the dry thickness of dread in her throat.

“I don’t give a _shit_ if you’re annoyed by my flirting, that’s par for the course. What I give a shit about is what’s been pissing you off about my presence since I got back from Belfast. You’ve got me wondering what I’ve done when I’ve done nothing, and I don’t fucking _like_ it.”

She expected him to punch back, verbally. Instead he looked dejected, like a puppy who’d been kicked for pissing on the rug. She preferred, for her immediate purposes, he just go on calling her a bitch. Shout it, in fact.

He did the opposite.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m an asshole.”

He closed the space between them and wrapped her in a tight bear hug, pressing her crossed arms and water bottle into his chest so hard so spilled on him. He wove his fingers into her scalp and massaged the exact spot she felt a tension headache festering which nearly made her moan and melt against him like chocolate.

She did allow herself a moment to breathe him in. In that moment, she considered just keeping her mouth shut and melting into him like she had so many times before and letting it all _be_. It would be so easy, feel so good.

For a while. A shorter and shorter while each time.

“If you want an out, I’m giving it to you right now,” she spoke evenly into his pectoral muscle, her lips dampening his shirt slightly.

“What?” He asked in shock, pulling back to look at her with his hands now on either of her shoulders.

She titled her chin up at him, not stepping back even the slightest.

“What I said. If you’re _done..._ We can be done,” she spoke those words just as evenly, even if she could feel the panic and anger practically sparking from the fingers clenched in her flesh.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He demanded lowly, the meaning of the entire argument crashing down on him, illustrated by the deep furrow of his brows.

“Don’t be dense,” she said quietly, maintaining an almost robotic tone, like she was reading lines from a scene she didn’t like. “If this isn’t working anymore, or even feels like it’s moving in that direction, let’s do what we did last time and cut it off.”

“Last time,” he breathed, dropping his hands abruptly from her shoulders. “You’re honestly comparing this, this... to fucking around in our trailers?”

“This,” she said with a humorless half smile. “You can’t even say relationship. Because it never was, was it? How different was it from before, really?”

Now he took a step back and pressed his hand to his mouth before saying, “That’s fucked up, even for _you_.”

“I’m trying to be a grown up about this,” she argued, crossing her arms again to hide the trembling.

“We gave it a shot. A real one, even, as much as either of our fucked up asses can. But if the bloom is off the rose, or it’s too much with our schedules--,”

  
“Who is he?”

“What?”

“Who did you _fuck_?” His rage was barely controlled, and the same look that used to come over him so many years before was back. Fireworks she used to think of it, exploding recklessly and at random and always painfully.

“I’m not the one playing a ridiculous game of grabbing my ass one moment and then leaving me on a sidewalk the next!” She was shouting now, matching his anger with her own, meeting him there again like they used to, because if it was just another fight like they used to have it wouldn’t hurt as much, or so she hoped and prayed. 

“Ignoring my texts and then showing up to fuck without a word. Not to mention ducking my calls while I was away, dropping off the face of the planet for _days_ , picking fights at every turn! I came back from Belfast and threw myself at you and you have been brimming with fucking contempt every moment we’ve been together!”

“For fuck’s sake I apologized, Gillian!” He took the bait and matched her volume. “I said I was an _asshole_ , and _meant it,_ and you take that as I want to _break up_?”

“You can’t break up a relationship that doesn’t exist,” she hurled at him, knowing it would be a fatal blow.

She’s shouted the same thing at him years ago, the _exact_ words, and it had devastated them both. For years.

She never forgot, and the look of utter betrayal on his face let her know he hadn’t either.

“Fuck you,” he growled, his jaw clenching and his entire body rigid, a sculpture of rage and disbelief. 

“Fuck _you,”_ she hissed back, falling into old habits after all. “ _You_ wanted this, you’ve wanted this for _years_ . After the heat from the concert, after filming last season, you were the one who went to _such lengths_ to disavow anything--,”

“I did that for _you_ !” He exploded, gesturing with both hands at her. “To protect _you_!”

“Oh that’s bullshit, David, _bullshit!”_

“No, you know what’s bullshit, you pinning this on _me,”_ he shouted with a sour laugh. “At least do me the courtesy of telling me who he is. You’ve never been shy before, and if this is just fucking around, then it shouldn’t even matter. Just show me that much respect.”

“There is _no one._ Unlike you, I don’t have to run from one relationship still smelling like the last one,” she practically sneered when she said it, the venom directed at him but she could feel it poisoning her from the inside.

“I’m comfortable enough in my own fucking skin where I can be alone and stand to look in the mirror,” she finished.

“Now who’s full of shit.” David countered, grabbing handfuls of his own hair in his hands for a violent pull, then running his hands down his face.

“Face it, Gillian,” he brought his voice back down to speaking tone, and moved towards her again, standing close enough so she had to look up to meet his eyes. “You’re the only one who can stand me, the _real me_ , and I’m the only one who can stand you, the _real you_. This is the only relationship either of us has had that makes any fucking sense, and it scares the shit out of you.”

“I would have bought that line, hook line and sinker, 20 years ago,” she whispered, reminding them both how he had failed her before. “It’s too late.”

“So that’s really all this was, then?” He asked softly, holding her gaze intently as if he could see the lie in her heart through her eyes. “Just like last time. A little encore.”

“I don’t know what this was,” she told him honestly, her voice breaking when she realized she had absolutely accomplished what she set out to. “But we both deserve better.”

She knew if he moved closer, touched her, or even let the silence go on much longer, she would cave. As they stood staring at each other her heart begged her to reconsider, to turn this runaway train around. 

The David she’d been with the past three years, whose heart she’d fallen asleep listening to, whose shirts she had started a collection of in her closet, whose voice immediately brought her a peace she seldom saw in her life, whose eyes seemed to see her wholly and whose heart loved her wholly even still, could have convinced her. So easily. She was weak for that David. She had been since she was 24 and ever since.

But he wasn’t here. She made sure of that, so she could do what needed to be done despite all of that.

“Good luck with that,” he said softly, resigned and aloof, already retreating emotionally as he physically retreated from the apartment. 

She hugged herself tightly, her nails pinching her skin through her robe and her feet fastened to their place on the threshold of the kitchen, willing herself to let him go, even as the sour taste of panic rose in her chest that this might be forever. 

“Enjoy looking in the mirror by your goddamn self, Gillian,” was how he left it, punctuated with a slam of the door.

✕


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by the heartbreaking and sexy "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).
> 
> All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for language.

_Have you no idea that you're in deep?_

_X_

**Vancouver, August 2017**

His body was humming all morning, hell all weekend, preparing for this day.

When he stepped out of his car on set, he involuntarily paused and sniffed the air like a hunting dog, wondering if he could tell if she was here already. Then he laughed at his dumb ass.

He made his rounds with the crew, high fives and nods and “Great to see you again, man,” meandering to Chris’s trailer.

When he finally pushed the door open, at first it didn’t register who the blonde was standing across from Chris and gesturing pointedly with a script, until she turned at his entrance and leveled a gaze at him that stopped him in his tracks in the door way.

Chris looked sheepishly over her shoulder.

“Hey, Chris,” he said cautiously.

“Hi,” Chris greeted stiffly. Shit. For a moment, David wondered if she told him…what, he wasn’t sure. His guilty conscience thought maybe she told him to fuck this guy and fuck this show, finally. Not getting anything else to work off of from the other man, David dropped his gaze to her.

“Greetings, Ms. Anderson,” he offered casually, he hoped, but his voice sounded lower and apologetic somehow, which she only minutely seemed to register and Chris seemed too distracted to give a shit about.

“Hi,” she greeted him, clipping the word off with a decisive snap as she shoved the script under her arm.

Shit shit shit.

“Am I interrupting—,”

“No, I was just leaving,” she said with the same forced casualness. “I’ll see you out there.”

With that she strode by him, not even grazing him slightly in the small space, deliberately.

He rubbed his hand through his hair after she hopped down the trailer steps and took off, and turned to Chris.

“What was that about?”

Chris grimaced. “Nothing. Nothing major.”

“What was she—,”

“ _Nothing_. Just discussing a few scenes.” Chris grumbled.

“O…k.”

“Did you need something?” Chris asked with a harsh sigh.

“Nope, just came for a big cuddly family reunion,” David said with a humorless smile. “Feels like I stepped into a time machine. Is it 1996?”

Chris expelled another harsh sigh. “Not even close.”

_X_

After contemplating the likelihood of a blow up, and realizing it better to happen in private than over the catering table, a few minutes later, he pushed the door of her trailer open as he knocked on it.

“Hey,” he offered, lingering by the door. She was sitting on her couch with her phone in her hand, and peered up at him with a guarded expression.

“Hey.”

So helpful. Without a delicate way to ease into it, he asked, “Everything ok?”

Her gaze faltered, then she looked back down at her phone. “Fine.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, stepping in and closing the door. “Try again.”

“I said fine,” she grumbled, standing and stalking over to stand at the vanity.

“You’re _fine_ , Chris said _Nothing_ like a sullen teenager…is there something I need to be clued in about?” He took the few steps needed to stand behind her and looked at her eyes in the mirror.

“Hey. Talk to me.”

“It’s…” She chewed her lip. “Did you read the scenes for the last episode?”

“Um, don’t tell Chris or the writers, but, no.”

“I’m fucking pregnant.”

“ _What_?”

Realizing what he thought, she rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Scully. Not me. _Scully_.”

“Oh. Shit,” David managed, finding air again. “That’s what you’re pissed about?”

“Of course, you wouldn’t see a problem,” she snapped angrily, tossing her phone down. “ _Of course._ ”

“Wait, what? Look I’m sorry I wandered into this scene without knowing my lines, but I have no clue what you and Carter are in a snit about.” He moved in closer, but didn’t dare touch her.

“Did you tell him…about us?”

“No, Jesus. You egomaniac. He dropped the script for the last episode on me this weekend, probably because he knew how pissed I’d be. Fucking pregnant. Again.” She braced her hands on either side of the vanity and dropped her head dejectedly. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“Look, I do. The script hasn’t been what either of us wanted, exactly, but, it—we’ve done worse,” he offered with a shrug and a smile.

She didn’t look up when she said, “Forget it.”

“Hey. I’m sorry you’re upset. But you know how he is. Come here.” He carefully put his hand on one of her shoulders to slowly turn her and straighten her tiny form. “Circle of trust?”

She scoffed as her lower lip stuck out in an honest to God pout and crossed her arms.

“More like a dot of trust at this point.”

He squeezed her shoulder, and gently pulled her into his arms. She slid inward like a puzzle piece falling into place, though her arms remained crossed between them. He rested both arms on her shoulders and lowered his face to hold her gaze as he spoke softly.

“At the end of the day, if anyone can sell whatever half-baked bullshit he spins, including another pregnancy, you’re the one who can. They don’t give me shit like this because they know I’ll be groaning audibly through filming. You’re a professional, so you’ll do it, and you’ll knock it out of the fucking park. And you know the fans will love it, because they love you.”

He didn’t know where the speech came from, but he meant every word. She seemed slightly taken aback too, so much it took a lot of the fire out of her mad, and she spoke equally calmly and softly.

“It’s just…I’m so sick of the same shit over and over again. I’m sick of Scully’s biggest plot point being her fucking uterus. They finally give her some fucking _distance_ from Mulder and within a season and a half she’s having a baby with him? It’s _tired_.” She looked up again, held his gaze with misty eyes. “I’m tired.”

“I know,” he brought one hand to rub her shoulder. “Let me see if I can talk to him.”

She shook her head quickly. “No. Don’t.”

“You sure?”

“No. There’s no point. He’ll get bitchy if he thinks we’re teaming up on him.”

He nodded at the truth in her statement.

“I’m sorry, Gill.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said sternly, before tilting her head up at him almost appraisingly. “Thank you for offering.”

“Of course.”

A moment passed in silence, almost too long, before she said, “I have to get to make-up.”

He dropped his arms immediately and she simultaneously stepped around him, putting physical distance between them.

Not wanting to leave it at that, he asked, “Are they doing your hair today?”

“No, I’m…I’m just doing a wig this season,” she admitted almost sheepishly. “See? My hair can’t do Scully anymore. I’ll be balder than Mitch.”

She pulled up the wavy blonde coif to show broken ends that a stylist had cunningly hidden beneath the layers. In the small space, the movement of her hair had released the scent of her shampoo which conjured images of her bathroom and her naked shoulders and he itched to reach out and stroke the ends of her hair. He pushed the urge away with thoughts that wondered if she was eating enough, but knew better than to ask.

“Maybe you can convince them that Scully is going through a midlife crisis and they can work the blonde into the script.”

She rolled her eyes as she grabbed her script and a bottle of water. “Great. Hysteria and pregnancy. I’ll pass.”

He followed her to the door, but before she could step outside of the threshold, he grabbed her hand one last time.

“Hey,” he murmured. Knowing his tone, she didn’t fully turn, just her head so he saw her in profile.

“What?”

“We’re good?” He asked, noticing that while she kept her back to him, she didn’t remove her hand from his.

  
“Yeah, we’re good,” she confirmed, arching an eyebrow at him. “Did you think we wouldn’t be?”

“No, I just—I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

He gently and briefly squeezed her hand but let it slide from his almost instantly.

“See you around, blondie.”

_X_

They didn’t talk about it for the rest of filming, and as far as he ever heard, she never brought it up to Chris again. But the little scuffle on day one between her and Carter helped solidify their alliance, and renew their connection, and selfishly, he was almost grateful for it at the time. Any fear he had about awkwardness or outright tension evaporated because it was them vs. the world again, like it was when she first told him she was having Piper and so many other small, pivotal moments over the years. It felt right, and the chemistry on screen was stronger than ever, even if the script was increasingly ridiculous (and yeah, he rolled his eyes a few times, but she pinched him when he did).

The alliance endured off-screen, as well. They fell easily into an almost sibling-like relationship—ok maybe not siblings, unless this was a Bertolucci film. But they weren’t fucking, they weren’t fighting, they enjoyed the hell out of each other, but they were never good enough with boundaries to “just be friends,” so siblings was the closest descriptor he could assign it.

She strolled into his trailer uninvited and chatted with him about one thing or the other while scratching Brick as he dragged his feet getting ready, stole his gum on the way out, took unflattering videos of him getting his make-up done and posted them on her social media, and made gratuitous vagina and blow-job jokes just to make him laugh during scenes. He reciprocated by stealing from her endless supply of snacks and eating off of her plate, practicing new chord combinations and testing lyrics with her in her trailer while they waited between scenes, murmuring jokes under his breath to make her laugh when filming got particularly grueling, and getting her drunk at dive bars he hunted down all over Vancouver until she would share a huge plate of spicy as hell wings with him and laughed _that laugh_ that got him drunker than the shitty beer.

It was borrowed time. A part of him knew all along, but like an idiot, he didn’t brace himself.

Which is why, when her announcement hit, it felt like a betrayal. It shouldn’t have, but at the bottom of it all, he was always an idiot when it came to her.

He stormed onto the interview backstage the day he heard, ignoring the crew, and snagged her elbow as she was talking to one of the panelists.

“What the fuck?” She snapped, jokingly, until she saw the look on his face.

“We need to talk,” he growled.

“Then talk, don’t grunt like a caveman,” she told him evenly, realization dawning on her.

He hustled her into a hallway outside, thankfully free of fans or media.

“What the fuck, Gillian?” He snapped as he slapped the door shut behind them.

She crossed her arms and sighed like a teacher tolerating a student having a tantrum.

“I assume you’re talking about—,”

“—You didn’t even tell Chris,” he cut her off, his hands on his hips as he paused in his pacing, like a pissed off lion chained up.

She rolled her eyes. “Like you give a shit about Chris. You’re mad I didn’t tell _you_.”

“Of fucking course I am!” He half-shouted, bringing his voice down as a group of people passed and peered briefly down the hall at them to add, “It’s unprofessional.”

“The hell it is,” she said with an indignant toss of her shoulders. “I told both of you before 10 that this was it for me.”

“That’s bullshit, first of all. You never said it for a fact, and even if you had, you’ve said it all before. After the second movie you said it, before 10 you said it, but here we are, wrapping up 11. You can’t be surprised that this feels like an ambush.”

“Well, I meant it. I’m sorry you two thought I was just talking out of my pretty little ass, but I meant it,” she returned hotly, but added softly, “And the bullshit with Chris about the pregnancy was the last straw.”

He held her eyes in that moment, seeing the frustration he’d seen back in August when they first had this conversation, and seeing that she was begging him to understand. He hardened against it, against his own inner voice that she was right.

“It’s a reboot,” he said after a pause. “We needed to find our groove. And we _found it_ this season, you know we did.”

“Yeah, it was great,” she agreed, with a sad smile. “Why fuck it up?”

“Who says we will?” He challenged.

“C’mon, David,” she hugged herself, and regarded him with confusion. “Where is this even coming from? You were just as over it as I was last season.”

“I was not,” he protested, even as the words left his mouth he knew they were a lie.

“Please. They had to CGI your sighs and eye rolls out.”

“But it turned around. This season was better. The standalone episodes were like the old days.”

She watched him for a moment before asking, “Is that what this is?”

“What is?”

“This isn’t the old days,” she whispered.

He took a step back, lifted his chin. “I know that.”

“Then let’s move _on.”_

“We will, when it’s _done,”_ he returned stubbornly.

“It is done. It’s been done,” maybe he was imagining it but her lip seemed to tremble for a moment before she stood on tip toe and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek, as he chewed the inside of his mouth.

“I’m sorry, David.”

They both knew they weren’t just talking about the show.

He sulked during the interview that day snd sat approximately six lightyears away from her on the couches, and they barely spared each other a glance for the rest of the weekend outside of the interviews they were contractually obligated to be adorable during. It was strained—even the fans noticed, according to his publicist and agent—and it felt wrong. It felt wrong but he was too pissed to try to fix it.

Too pissed to say good bye beyond a half-hearted wave over his shoulder as he left the final day.

Too pissed to respond to her texts over the following few weeks, until they stopped.

Too pissed to go to her star ceremony, even though he was in California at the time.

Until he saw the photos. Fuck, she looked sad. Fuck, he was an idiot.

With the same thumb he flicked through the photos with, he pulled up iMessage.

>>How do you spot a blind man on a nude beach?

He watched, foolishly willing the three dots to pop up. As if she had nothing better to do than text him back, especially after he ignored her for months.

But she was better than him. She always had been.

The three dots popped up, and relief came out of him in an audible sigh.

>> _It’s not hard._

_> >What do you call the useless piece of skin on a penis?_

He chuckled as he typed.

>>A man.

_> >Are we friends again?_

He hesitated.

>>Can’t get rid of me that easily.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Completed 4 Feb 2021*
> 
> Post-series relationship timeline, inspired by "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (but actually by the stripped-down Live Lounge cover by Dua Lipa).
> 
> All due respect to those depicted, who I truly hope have found more happiness than I imagine for them here. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for language.
> 
> Final note: Thank you to everyone who read, commented, kudos-ed, as well as everyone who has written some of the amazing stories I've found on here. This was my first foray into the fandom both as a writer and a reader, and it's been such a great outlet and community during these strange times the past several months. You are all very appreciated! xx

_We both know_

_The nights are mainly made for sayin’_

_Things that you can’t say tomorrow day_

✕

**London, 18 December 2020**

_✕_

As soon as Peter walked out the door, for the last time, and it shut gently and soundlessly and effortlessly as if four years of history hadn’t just vanished beyond it, she thought of him.

He never closed doors gently. Especially not after a fight. They both fought viciously, desperately trying to snap or even just weaken the thread of electrified steel that kept them bound to each other, and were never quite able to, no matter how many hurtful words or slammed doors passed between them.

It had never, ever been like that with Peter. Not at their best or their worst. It had been a relief, a genuine relief. She was growing up-- _finally_. And in keeping with that tradition, even this, their last confrontation, the definitive demise of their “us,” was polite, gentle, and quite final in a way it had never been with him. It should have been a relief, and in certain ways it was, but the way it brought David blazing to the forefront of her mind pissed her off.

_God damn it._

The first thing she did, before Peter’s car was even fully gone from the drive, was begin to deep clean the house, even though Magda had done her usual splendid work just the day before. She swore she could still smell him, and was mildly terrified she might find his hair in the sink or in the dryer and be reminded of her failure at doing the right thing for once in her life. She scrubbed out the tubs with a dizzying cocktail of chemicals that stripped off the tips of her manicure. She ran scalding water over and over in the shower until her hands pruned. She stuffed the bedding she normally sent out into her washer. She ran the dishwasher six times to accommodate every piece of cutlery and glass and dish she had. She dusted every surface and even though her body ached with fatigue, she dragged the furniture in the family room around into a new position that he had hated.

But it wasn’t Peter she kept seeing in her mind’s eye.

She showered as the last of her bedding tumbled in the dryer, and when she stepped out of the bathroom in her pajamas, Nelson eyed her suspiciously from a seat in the hallway.

_What’s up, lady?_

She crouched down to squeeze and scratch him reassuringly.

_Nothing, buddy._

The house was eerily quiet. The boys had gone with Mark ahead of the holiday, and wouldn’t be back for four days, for Christmas Eve here with her. She had gotten used to the quiet, relished it even, but tonight was a night she needed a distraction, not solitude.

She opened a three-quarters full bottle of Chardonnay left from far too long ago, before lockdown when they’d had a dinner party, and she cringed when she took the first sip, but relished the bite and sourness. Nelson padded after her into the kitchen, his face no longer inquisitive but resigned.

“I know how you feel,” she told him aloud after she polished off the first glass of wine.

Hugging the bottle under her arm and letting the glass dangle from her fingers and a few droplets hit her painfully shiny cleaned floor, she padded into the family room and curled up on the couch. As Nelson hopped up dutifully behind her and wedged next to her thigh, she clutched the remote of the television but only stared unseeingly at the dark expanse of the dormant television screen for several minutes.

After an undefined amount of staring, she finally flicked on a movie, an old Bette Davis film about love-that-could-never-be, and filled her wine glass to the brim.

By the time Paul Henreid came onto the screen, in all his dashing blonde glory, the wine bottle was empty. She left the couch to find something else to put in her mouth, a drink or a snack, or anything that would keep her from calling him. Because after the adrenaline of her deep-clean tapered off and the sound of her own thoughts were pressing on her, it’s all she wanted to do.

_God damn it._

When she walked back from the kitchen, she noticed a tote hanging on the knob of the coat closet. It was Piper’s, and sticking out the top was a reindeer headband she insisted upon for Nelson. Gillian snorted, grabbed the headband, and headed back to the couch.

Nelson scowled at her as she giggled once the thing was perched on his head. His tolerance for her was waning and she knew he’d jump down to wrestle it off, so she snapped a quick photo.

His grumpiness was palpable in the photo.

“I _really_ know how you feel,” she smirked to herself as she opened Twitter. Within seconds, his cranky little visage was on display for the world to see, with her words “I know how you feel,” shared above them. Hearts started flooding her notifications, her mentions lit up, but the shot of serotonin was brief. She muted the post and tossed her phone aside.

Her eyes flicked back to the television screen, where Bette Davis was sobbing, and Gillian heaved a sigh.

She snatched her phone back up, opened iMessage, and fired off the photo to the only person she'd really wanted to send it to before she could change her mind.

>>Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.

Nelson hopped down at this point, ungrateful for his latest publicity still, flung the headband to the side so it fell at the bottom of the couch by her feet, and retreated from her drunken tomfoolery to his bed.

She waited a few minutes, long enough for Bette Davis to decide she was her own woman who didn’t need love, and sighed when no response came.

She was a fool. Bette could teach her a thing or two.

She was dozing, around the time Bette was playing tennis with Claude Raines, when her phone chimed. Her heart skipped a beat, but she braced herself for it to be anyone or anything else. A coupon for food delivery maybe.

But it wasn’t.

>> _That’s just cruel._

She snickered.

“He always takes your side,” she muttered with a smile to Nelson.

>>It’s damn cute. I’m sending one for Brick. And for you.

She grabbed the headband from the floor and stuck it onto her half-damp hair.

>>See?

His response was immediate.

>> _You’re right. Damn cute._

For some reason, she felt like crying. And she very nearly did when his next text popped up.

>> _How’re things, blondie?_

She escaped the gravity of the question by looking again at the television screen, where the climactic scene was unfolding, and then down to the empty bottle of wine on the coffee table. She clutched the phone in her hand as she sat paralyzed by her own indecision. She started this and suddenly felt exhausted, to the bottom of her soul.

>> _You’re taking a while. I’m worried._

Tears blossomed from each eye and slid along her lash line. After a steadying breath, she typed the first thing she could think of. The bullshit line he always gave Chris after they had one of their spats--or fucks--and had to pretend to be professional.

>>Just ducky.

She added a duck emoji for good measure.

>> _Oh..._

He read between the lines.

_ >>What’s going on? _

She swiped at the tears and swallowed the lump in her throat. Of course this was the Good David, the attentive best friend. His distance and condescension never showed up when she needed it.

>> _Gillian?_

She was about to respond, to play it off, when the screen cleared to make way for a FaceTime call. She gasped and jerked back in her seat, not expecting it. She moved her thumb instinctively to decline, but after all, she started it. Her heart pounded after she hit accept and the few seconds that passed before his face appeared felt eternal.

He was in his dusk-lit family room, crouched forward on his taupe couch, his hair in comfy disarray hanging slightly onto his forehead. He studied her face for a moment, his expression grave.

“God damn it, woman, are you ok?” He demanded. She didn’t even want to imagine what her face, scrubbed of makeup and flushed with wine and now probably puffy from the oncoming tears, looked like.

“I’m fine,” she replied almost brattily. “I’m sorry I can’t type as fast as you can.”

“You’re not sick?” he pressed, pushing the hair back to clear his view as he continued to study her.

“Sick--no, oh my God, no,” she laughed quickly. “Nothing like that.”

“Jesus, you had me scared,” he sat back, dropped his head against the back of the couch. “I don’t know why, probably because cases are fucking out of control here, but I just thought--,”

“No, no, nothing like that. We’re all good,” she assured him, including we for the kids. “Are you guys all okay?”

“Yeah, yeah we’re good,” he studied her with new curiosity now. “Then what’s going on?”

She chewed her lip.

“I guess I just missed you,” she murmured, intending to keep it flirty and light, and failing.

“What else is new. I know I’m constantly on your mind,” he joked, smiling and readjusting to close the open book that was on his thigh. She hoped the truth in the joke didn’t shine in her eyes.

“Thank God you called to remind me you’re an ass.”

“That’s what I do,” he proclaimed, and as he spoke, Brick hopped up next to him. “Hey, B, it’s your girlfriend.”

Brick slammed his head into the side of David’s chest, seeming to strain to see her.

“Hi buddy!” She had a sudden flashback of the specific wiriness of Brick’s fur, scratching on her bare legs as she sprawled on that same couch, her feet across David’s lap as they watched television, and the tears sprang to her eyes so quickly and violently she couldn’t stop them from falling. She expected a sarcastic joke as she lowered her head and pressed her fingers into her eyes, but of course, this one _god damn time,_ David didn’t deliver.

“Jesus, Gill,” his voice was practically a caress. “What the hell is going on, baby?”

“I miss you,” she repeated, her voice scratchy, as she looked up at him. “And I just...am kind of pissed about it.”

He pursed his lips.

“Ouch,” he remarked, but then added softly, “But I get it.”

She smiled without humor.

“Peter and I--,” she shook her head. “It’s over. It’s over, and it’s _been_ over, and he left tonight and all I could think was how _polite_ and _civil_ it was. It was weird.”

“Yeah, I’ve read about that happening...can’t say I’ve ever experienced it myself.”

“I know. Me either. It’s fucking weird.”

“Probably a sign of maturity,” he proffered the same lie she’d been telling herself for years.

“It didn’t feel like...me,” she said, “It was out of body. Didn’t feel like me, didn’t feel like…”

“Maybe because it’s not over, not really--”

“No,” she interrupted firmly. “Because it is. Because it was so final. It didn’t feel like me. Or us. It was nothing like us.”

He was quiet, and it was her turn to drop her head back against the back of the couch.

“It was nothing like us. And I’m fucking pissed because even after all these god damn years, all I do is compare everything and everyone, to us. To you.” She stared at the ceiling as more tears streamed down from the corners of her eyes and pooled in the damp hair around her temples. “When will you get out of my head, Duchovny?”

David sighed on the other end.

“You first, Anderson.”

She bit her lip and smiled a shaky smile.

“We’re such an unholy mess,” she quoted her favorite movie drily, and he chuckled, looking down as he scratched Brick.

“Going on thirty years,” he agreed.

“Now that’s just horrific. This is not a love story, it’s a _horror_ story,” she asserted, the tears and heartbreak quelled for the moment. He returned it with a deep chuff of laughter.

“It’s always been a bit of both, sometimes one more than the other,” he mused, now meeting her eyes in the camera. “You’ll be all right, you know.”

She nodded, pressing her lips together. “I know.”

He watched her thoughtfully, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.

“If I could, I’d be there for you,” he told her, adding softly, “In a heartbeat, kid.”

“I know,” she agreed, because she did. He’d done it before.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” he suggested gently. “Shit always seems a touch less dire by the light of day.”

“I know,” she pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed. “Of course you’re right.”

“I don’t mean sit on your couch crying over black and white movies for the next two hours _and then_ go to bed dehydrated and morose. Get up and go now.”

She scowled at him. “You don’t know me.”

He laughed. “Too well, I do. What were you watching when I called? _Casablanca?”_

“No!’ she sneered jokingly, then added, “ _Now, Voyager.”_

“Even worse!” he decried. “Get up, take Nelson out. Call me back when you’re in bed.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously, eyeing him.

“I was _going to_ read to you,” he said innocently, holding up his paperback, but then he crooked an eyebrow at her. “But if you happened to be naked when you called back--,”

“Goodbye, pervert,” she said, abruptly ending the call.

But she did as she was told. She let Nelson into the garden to do his business, downed two glasses of water, and after retrieving the dog from the yard, climbed into her blissfully clean and empty bed.

When he picked up her call, he was lying on the couch and the phone was propped on his shoulder, the camera close to lightly-bearded cheek.

“Good girl,” he greeted her. She smiled, her eyes already half-closed.

“What are we reading?”

She wasn’t sure she made it past the first page of Where the Crawdads Sing.

But when she woke the next morning and fished her phone from the bedsheets, she noticed on the call log that he’d kept reading for more than an hour, and after disconnecting, had texted her:

>> _Sleep well, Gillian. I love you._

_ >>The story’s not over. Call me if you want to know how it ends. _

_✕_


End file.
